In celebration of the Dia de Zamboanga, the USAID-ENGAGE in partnership with the local government and other agencies will organize a women conference and a summit for Civil Society Organizations with the hope of expanding citizen’s participation in governance.

The Women’s Conference: Strengthening Women’s participation in governance and asserting the Women’s development agenda is scheduled on Tuesday, February 24 at the Centro Latino in Paseo del Mar from 8am to 5pm. The activity will see the convergence of women leaders to discuss challenges facing Zamboanga women.

The discussions will cover the status of women’s conditions and rights in the workplace and communities; status of women’s conditions and rights in governance; promoting women’s health and the gender code of the city.

The women’s confab is a joint undertaking with the WMSU Gender Research and Resource center, the GAD through Councilor Myra Abubakar, Social Action Center of the Archdiocese of Zamboanga and USAID-MinHealth Project. It will be in partnership with the Office of the City Mayor.

On the other hand, the CSO Summit: Mobilizing and Expanding the support of Civil Society for Security, Health and Education is set on Wednesday, Feb. 25 at 8am at the Ateneo de Zamboanga University.

The activity is a gathering of leaders from various NGOs and CSOs in the city to discuss the people[s needs in the areas of security, health and education. The discussion will focus on the current situation in the area of security, health and education and propose strategies to mobilize and expand citizen’s support for these priorities.

Partners in this activity will be ADZU-Social Awareness and Community Service Involvement (SACSI), Integrated Resource development for Tri-People (IRDT), ADZU-Social Action Center (SAC), USAID-Mindanao Health Project, Young Moro Professionals (YMP) and the Zamboanga Alliance for Public Safety (#PSZambo). — Sheila Covarrubias